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Tottel's Miscellany
Songes and Sonettes, usually called Tottel's Miscellany, was the earliest printed anthology of English poetry, published in 1557 by Richard Tottel in London. Overview Songs and Sonettes is considered to be the most important English poetic collection in the 16th century and Tottel's "great contribution to English letters." The 1st collection to be printed for the pleasure of the common reader, it inaugurated a long series of poetic anthologies in Elizabethan England. It was also the last large use of sonnet form for several decades, in published work, until the appearance of Philip Sidney's sonnet sequence Astrophel and Stella (1591) and the anthology The Phoenix Nest (1593). Most of the poems included in the anthology were written in the 1530s but not previously published. Many of them were published posthumously. There are in total 54 actual sonnets in the anthology. These include 9 from unknown authors, 3 from Nicholas Grimald, 15 from Surrey, and 27 from Wyatt. The incorporated poetry had numerous comments on religion, covering Catholicism, Protestantism, and the English Reformation. Later editors of the early modern period then took out many of these religious references. Richard Tottel Tottel was an English publisher with a shop at Temple Bar on Fleet Street in London. The majority of his publications were legal treatises, including a legal history of the reign of Richard III, and legal yearbooks covering parts of the reigns of Henry VIII and Edward VI. Besides, Songs and Sonnets, he also gave the public Surrey's translation of the 2nd and 4th books of Virgil's Aeneid, which is the earliest known example of English blank verse. He is responsible too for the 1st edition printed of Cicero's De Officiis in 1556 by Nicholas Grimald, who would later contribute to the miscellany. Tottel also published Thomas More's Utopia and another collection of More's writings, John Lydgate's translations from Giovanni Boccaccio, and books by William Staunford and Thomas Tusser. Publishing history The 1st edition of Tottel's Miscellany appeared on 5 June 1557, a quarto with the title Songes and Sonettes Written By the Ryght Honorable Lord Henry Howard, late Earle of Surrey, and other. The volume consisted of 271 poems, none of which had been printed before: 40 poems by Surrey, 96 by Wyatt, 40 by Grimald, and 95 by unknown authors. The only extant copy is in the Bodleian Library in England. A reprint, which was limited to 60 copies, was edited by John Payne Collier in 1867. A revised and expanded 2nd edition was published in quarto on 30 July 1557. "In eight weeks, as Hyder E. Rollins points out, Songes and Sonettes was 'completely changed' and 'thoroughly revised'." 30 of Grimald's poems were removed but 39 additional ones were added to the anonymous category, for a final tally of 281 poems. As well, the sequence of poems was changed in 27 cases.Richard Tottel’s Songes and Sonettes: The Elizabethan Version, Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies. Web, Apr. 7, 2019. There are only 2 copies of this work in existence, in the Grenville Collection at the British Museum and Trinity College, Cambridge. At least 10 further editions were printed in the Elizabethan period, 7 between 1558 and 1586, with a 10th edition being published in 1587. Contributors The collection comprises mostly the works of Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey and Thomas Wyatt the Elder. Both were heavily influenced by Italian poetry, although Wyatt's meter would be adapted to conventional English iambic stress by Tottel. The star poet of Tottel's Miscellany, the Earl of Surrey, created the English sonnet form by modifying the Petrarchan sonnet. If the English sonnet is also called the Shakespearean sonnet, that can be attributed to Shakespeare's fame. The form which Surrey created (three quatrains in alternate rhyme and a concluding couplet) is easier to write in English than the Petrarchan form, with its more complex rhyme scheme. Wyatt's inclusion in Tottel's Miscellany would mark the 1st time this poet's work was printed. (2 of Surrey's poems had previously appeared in print). Of the 95 anonymous poems in the original edition Tottel made note that the authors were sure to include Thomas Churchyard, Thomas Vaux, Edward Somerset, John Heywood, and Francis Bryan. Of those 95 poems, 2 have been definitely attributed to Vaux, 1 to John Heywood, and 1 to Somerset. It is believed that Geoffrey Chaucer wrote at least 1 of the poems, titled in the anthology as, "To leade a vertuous and honest life." Although some of the wording has been altered slightly, this poem appears to be "a somewhat mutilated copy of Chaucer's ballad on "Truth."" Hamlet.]] This is a sample of a poem found in the text by Sir Thomas Wyatt:. :They flee from me, that sometime did me seek, :With naked foot stalking within my chamber: :Once have I seen them gentle, tame, and meek, :That now are wild, and do not once remember, :That sometime they have put themselves in danger :To take bread at my hand ; and now they range :Busily seeking in continual change (This poem refers to Elizabeth I's mother, Anne Boleyn. Wyatt wisely withdrew from the chase in favor of a more heavyweight suitor. Both had the problem of being already married, but the other suitor, Henry VIII, eventually solved that one). Impact Tottel's Miscellany was so popular during the Elizabethan era that it is considered the most influential of all Elizabethan miscellanies, although it was, in fact, published a year before Elizabeth I took the throne. Shakespeare uses some of its verses in The Merry Wives of Windsor and Hamlet, and directly quotes the anonymous poem, "Against him that had slaundered a gentlewoman with him selfe", in The Rape of Lucrece: :"To me came Tarquin, armed to beguild, :With outward honesty but yet defiled..." In the Miscellany the quote is: :"so was the house defiled, :Oh Collatiue: so was the wife beguilde." See also *Elizabethan miscellanies *List of poetry anthologies References External links ;Text *[https://archive.org/details/tottelsmiscellan00tottuoft Tottel's Miscellany] (edited by Edward Arber) at Internet Archive ;About *"The Case for Nicholas Grimald as Editor of "Tottel's Miscellany", Modern Language Review Category:1557 books Category:British poetry collections Category:Poetry anthologies